


..And It Was All A Dream

by blushies



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Domestic, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Galra Keith (Voltron), M/M, Sad with a Happy Ending
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-17
Updated: 2018-05-22
Packaged: 2019-05-08 07:58:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14689821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blushies/pseuds/blushies
Summary: Haggar has Keith trapped in 7 layers of a dream state. Shiro has come to rescue him, but Keith will have to overcome his own obstacles and find Shiro seven times in order to escape.As they get deeper into his sub-consciousness, it becomes clear that things aren’t what they seem.Self-indulgent AUs and plenty of romance ahead!





	1. Prologue

As the scheduling unit powered down, a Galra soldier considered his own yellow eyes in the reflection of the darkened monitor. In his intense gaze he saw a sense of duty, a fierce determination, and a thirst for justice. Some things never change, even when everything else does. Since assuming a Galra form, Keith had gained a new height, pointed ears, and a lithe strength in all his limbs. He no longer thought of himself as Keith at all. Switching over was easy as showing up at Zarkon’s door. It had been in his blood all along. 

He liked the speed, strength and savage will that being a Galra had given him. Most of all, he loved being surrounded by swarms of other Galra who looked like him, acted like him and thought like him. His fellow Galra understood the true meaning of strength and honor.

As days at Central Command turned into weeks, which turned into months, Keith only had a ghost of a memory of his former life. The less he remembered his past, the more impulsive and ruthless he became, and he liked it. 

“Veprit Sa” A voice barked out. Keith snapped out of his daze.  
“Veprit Sa” He fired back, easy as breathing. 

Keith stood to attention to complete his greeting, and found himself looking up at Sergeant Zagrah, the Galra in charge of Keith’s team of soldiers. 

“I heard you had a hand in our victory yesterday” Said Zagrah. 

Four ships from The Blade had come to Central Command, and only being a scant step up from a Sentry, Keith normally would have been forbidden from getting his hands on any flight equipment or long-range weaponry. But, as he was passing a turret to take his place as an entry guard, he watched an operator fall to the floor by the knockback from his gun. When the operator didn’t get back up, Keith stepped in and shot the engines off all four Blade ships. 

Stepping out of order like that could have earned him an execution, but he heard the warm tone in the sergeant’s voice, and knew his risk had paid off. 

“It was my duty to ensure the success of the empire” Keith said.  
Zagrah barked a satisfied laugh. “You’ve got a good head, soldier. Keep that up and you might see the inside of a cockpit in a few years.”

Keith appreciated the idea of being moved up, but he liked staying close to central command. He’d rather be filling Zagrah’s shoes someday, but he’d have to do much more than take out a few ships to get there. 

“In the meantime, I’ve got a new assignment for you” Zagrah said.  
Keith perked up.

“The western quadrant is completely unstaffed and we’ve recently received a shipment of quintessence. We need a guard there who is stronger and more alert than your average sentry in case of a breach.”

Keith bowed his head in gratitude and began to escort himself to his new post. Once he was out of Zagrah’s view, he let his shoulders slump. This wasn’t really a special assignment. On the day after an attack, a breach was highly unlikely. This assignment wasn’t too different from what he’d normally be doing on a day like this. Zagrah must have been able to smell the envy on Keith, and was trying to keep him down.

Keith logged into the area’s security software before making his first round of the premises. To his surprise, a warning popped up:

UNIDENTIFIED MATTER DETECTED  
AIRLOCK 8A

This kind of warning came up when airlock doors hadn’t closed all the way, and dust or debris came through the tiny gap between doors. Great. Now Zagrah had Keith fixing door jams. 

The airlock was at the back of the main store room for the area. Keith admired the glowing bottles of quintessence, neatly stacked in endless rows, ready to be transported to the main energy store. It was a beautiful sight. Keith felt a swell of Galra pride in his chest as he looked upon the riches of his people. 

The bundles of shipment were parted neatly down the middle. It was a straight shot to the airlock, but he stepped cautiously through the room, weapon drawn, as protocol demanded. Halfway through his stalk down the center aisle, he heard a faint clank in the far corner of the room. He could have dismissed it as a bottle shifting from the natural movement of the ship, or a disturbance of his own making, but what set Keith apart from the other Galra was his dedication to being thorough. 

Without missing a beat, Keith turned his back on the side of the room where he heard the disturbance and held his weapon tighter. He was trying to lure whatever – or whoever- might be there out of their hiding spot. 

Several moments passed and Keith hadn’t been attacked from behind. The room remained silent. He realized that if he kept this up, he’d look stupid on the surveillance footage when his performance was put up for review. He dropped his ruse and went straight to the corner to investigate.

When he got there, he found that one of the cords keeping the stacks of quintessence bundled together was loose. The bottle rattled again when he came near. He tied the bundle back up and relaxed his stance as he finally made his way to the airlock to remedy the issue he came here for. 

Just as he suspected, the rubber seal between the doors had stopped just short of pressing together, and the floor was covered in a layer of dust, where the ground sensors must have picked up a change in weight. The ground and walls of Central Command had an underlying network of sensors and systems that could pick up an infinite number of signals.

Keith forced the doors back together with some difficulty, and considered the floors. He scowled at the thought of being stooped to the level of a lowly dust cleaner, but it was up to him to neutralize the warning. 

He turned to retrieve cleaning supplies and was met by a broad figure blocking his exit from the airlock.

Keith immediately drew his weapon and prepared to fire. 

“Keith, STOP!” The figure’s voice echoed within the small room.

Keith was caught off guard by the exclamation and hesitated. He looked the figure up and down. Clad in black and white, with the hair to match, it took a moment for Keith to remember the name of such creatures. Humans. Something in the back of his mind began to nudge. He vaguely remembered an order not to destroy humans like this, but for what reason? 

“Keith, it’s me, Shiro.” The human’s eyes burrowed into Keith’s face with desperation. Pathetic. Keith pitied those born into this species, with their short limbs and slow bodies, but he couldn’t help but be entranced by the creature’s broad construction and soft features. The human’s dark eyes glinted in the artificial light, shining wetly with emotions that Keith had long forgotten. 

Keith drew himself up to his full height, raised his weapon and squeezed the trigger to charge the fire. Before the gun could discharge, Shiro threw himself at Keith’s exposed middle, sending him stumbling off balance towards the wall. Shiro ripped the gun out of Keith’s arms, who began to claw at him to regain a position with more leverage. Shiro knew full well that he wouldn’t have the upper hand for long, Keith’s Galra form gave him an advantage that Shiro wasn’t used to, so he dropped the gun and kicked it, sending it sliding down the center aisle of the store room. 

Keith pushed Shiro off from on top of him. Shiro stumbled back, giving him the leverage he needed to wind up for a punch. Shiro caught Keith’s fist before it hit him the face. Shiro pushed on the first with both of his hands, trembling with the force it took to keep him back. 

“Keith..” he strained “ you have to listen to me!” 

The stupid creature wasn’t making any sense. Keith tried to twist his arm away from the human’s grasp, and to his surprise, Shiro let go. The sudden release sent Keith’s arm dropping across his body, where Shiro caught both of the Galra’s hands in his own and held them.

He squeezed Keith’s fingers and pleaded “Keith. This is a dream. Haggar has you trapped in a dream state, and you have to wake up to get out.”

Everything around Keith suddenly became blurry. The room spun. His heart was pounding and his mind felt like it was being dissolved into a million pieces. He was remembering.. something. 

“Huh… Help?” Keith said, confusion overwhelming him. “Shiro.. Help me please.” 

He could hear his own voice but it felt like it was coming from the mouth of someone else. 

Everything began to spin faster and Keith looked down at his hands. He couldn’t tell if they were purple or tan. A sudden rage welled in his stomach and Keith regained his Galra senses. He ripped his hands out of Shiro’s grasp and drove his fist into the wall beside him, setting off a ship-wide alarm. He let out a roar and threw Shiro to the ground. As he raised his leg to kick the man on the floor, he caught Shiro’s eyes one more time. 

“Fuck! Please Keith, I know this isn’t you. You have to be in there” Shiro pleaded breathlessly.

A wave of recognition swept over him. What was he doing? Keith looked back down at his foot and saw a soft boot where metal-clad claws once were. He folded to his knees.  
Shiro clambered over and pulled him up by the armpits. The sound of marching feet began to compete with the sound of the alarm. 

“Shit. We don’t have much time.” Shiro grabbed his shoulders “Keith, the witch is trying to take control of you by trapping your consciousness in a series of dreams. If we’re going to get you out, you’re going to have to come with me.”

The rest of the Galra soldiers were rounding the corner now. 

“Hold On!” Shiro shouted over the ruckus.

Keith wrapped his arms around Shiro’s waist. Shiro flipped the switch to open to doors of the airlock. They were thrust, clutching each other, into the vacuum of space. They watched the Galra ship get smaller and smaller in the distance as they floated away.

Floating in the silence of space was a great relief. Keith buried his face into Shiro’s chest. Still dazed from the whole experience, he struggled to find anything coherent to say.

“Sorry I tried to kill you.” Keith mumbled.

Shiro chuckled. “It wasn’t real. None of this is real.”

Keith took a quiet moment to try and process this information. It all had felt so real, it still felt real.

“This is going to happen again and again,” Shiro said “and you’re going to have to choose to go with me each time.” 

Keith nodded into Shiro’s shirt. They floated in silence for another minute. Keith could see every little weave on Shiro's shirt, could feel his breath going in and out of his chest, could smell the distant musky hint of his body wash, and couldn't imagine being anywhere else. 

“I guess this it” said Shiro, looking behind him.

Keith lifted his head and followed Shiro’s gaze. In the distance, a dark mass, darker than the black of the sky, was swallowing up the stars and space. Keith looked around to see it was approaching from all directions, like they were at the centre of some sort of pixelated vortex. They heard a distant roar that grew in volume as the darkness came clearer into their view. 

They squeezed each other tighter, unsure of what was to come next. As the sound became louder, Shiro yelled into Keith’s ear:

“Remember, you have to choose me every time!” The sound picked up and they squeezed their eyes shut as the darkness approached them.

“Every! Time!” Shiro screamed over the deafening roar.

For Shiro there was silence, and then a darkness like sleep. 

Then there was the sound of a school bell.


	2. Game, Set, Match

DRIIIIING

The tinny and electronic bell rang out across the schoolyard of an unfamiliar high school. Shiro found himself in the parking lot, backpack slung over one shoulder, and Keith nowhere in sight. Shiro looked down at himself to see he was straddling the seat of a parked motorcycle. Stranger yet, he also saw his hands. Two tanned flesh-and-blood hands.

He flexed his new hand and marveled at how real it all felt. He turned his attention ahead of him where the school sign, made up of symbols and gibberish, reminded him that he was in a dream.

The inside of the school could have been any high school. The same painted brick walls, aluminum lockers and hordes of students that Shiro remembered from his school days. He scanned the crowds. In one corner, a couple using a locker door as a privacy screen for their make-outs. In another, a group of teens laughed far too loudly at something on a phone.

Finally he spotted Keith. His hair was drawn back in a ponytail and Shiro could almost feel the heat radiating off the glow of physical exertion in the morning sun. Keith was dressed as if he was part of a sports team of some sort.

“Keith!” Shiro shouted across the hallway.

Keith continued to stand with his arms crossed, wrapped up in conversation with his teammates, seeming not to have heard him. Shiro pushed through the crowd as he raced down the hall to him. He lay a hand on Keith’s shoulder as if to pull him away.

“Keith. It’s me, Shiro. This is a dream and you have to-”

Keith violently shrugged off Shiro’s grip.

“Keep your fuckin hands off him, man!” One of Keith’s teammates interjected. The teen caught Shiro off guard. There was a striking similarity between him and Keith. He had the same dark hair, but only his looked like it had been meticulously styled rather than naturally disheveled. He matched Shiro in height, and had a gaunter appearance, but the two boys still looked like they could have been brothers.

“What’s your problem?” Keith said as he shot Shiro a scathing look. Shiro couldn’t catch a hint of recognition in the other boy’s eyes.

“Come on Keith! It’s Shiro. You have to come with me so that we can-”

“Look, I don’t fucking know you.” Keith fired back.

 Shiro struggled to find words. He had hoped Keith’s consciousness would have been easier to move in the second dream.

The teammate stepped back in.

“If you wanna keep talking to him like that, you’ll have to deal with me after school.”

It had been a long time since Shiro had heard that kind of talk. He was reminded of all the stupid fights he got in when he was young and couldn’t help but let a corner of his mouth twitch upward as he held in a laugh.

“You think this is a fucking joke??” The team mate seemed really angry now. He stepped forward to size Shiro up.

Just then, the second bell rang, indicating the last chance to make it to homeroom

“This isn’t over.” The team mate backed down, but continued to shoot him a nasty look.

In true teen form, the only thing Shiro could think of to say was “Whatever” as he repositioned his backpack and walked into the milling crowd.

In the first dream, the biggest obstacle was finding Keith in the vast and changing ship. What was the problem? Shiro wondered if the problem was Keith’s teammates. He needed to get Keith alone. Shiro scanned the hall again, but Keith was nowhere to be found. He’d have to play along with the dream for a little in the meantime.  

Shiro stared down the rows of classroom doors and wondered which, if any, of the rooms were supposed to be his class. If this was a dream, did it really matter? He settled on entering the first class he saw to test this theory.

\---------

The bell to dismiss first period was a relief for Shiro. He had walked into a literature class where they were reading a play. When it came time for Shiro to read a part, his book was empty and he didn’t know the words. His peers all glared at him for holding up the class, and the teacher refused to move on until Shiro read his part.

The second class was no easier. It was a long lecture about history where no matter how fast he wrote his notes, he always fell so behind that he didn’t know what the teacher was talking about.

Then came lunch. Keith was nowhere to be seen in the cafeteria or hallways. Shiro even checked the gym to be thorough.

He walked into his next class feeling worried about the status of his mission. The room he chose was a lab room, filled with tall steel tables in neat rows that sat two people each. He slumped into one of the empty tables at the back by himself.

The class began. The teacher pulled up slide diagrams of cell structures that Shiro did not recognize. They had just barely begun to examine the first diagram when the door creaked open. Shiro’s spirits immediately lifted.

Keith entered, late to class, his expression seeming to indicate he was caught up in a plot all his own. Every seat in the class was full, save for the spot beside Shiro. Keith scanned the room for longer than was necessary to determine that the class was indeed full, and then reluctantly settled in the empty seat beside Shiro, avoiding eye contact the entire time.

Shiro fought every urge in his body to turn to the side and stare at Keith, or to shake him or yell at him. Anything to get that spark of recognition back in his eyes. He settled on playing the dream game for a little longer, remembering the ruckus of their first encounter.

Soon enough, the teacher began to distribute a handout. It was another cell diagram which they were supposed to label in pairs. Keith slumped back in his chair in annoyance. Shiro slumped backwards to meet him face to face.

“Hey. I’m Shiro.”

“I’ve heard.”

Shiro offered a hand out awkwardly to his side. Keith stared for a moment before extending his own.

“Keith.” They shook hands and turned their attention to the sheet in front of them.

The diagram definitely looked cell-like. It was an illustrated lump, with a chunk cut out to reveal a cross section full of shapes that looked like various vegetables and wild colors. Shiro squinted hard at it for a moment before turning to his partner.

“I uh… I’m new to this. I don’t actually know what any of this is.” He gestured to the sheet in front of them.

Keith rolled his eyes at him and got to work filling in the provided blanks with words Shiro had never seen before. Only the scratching of Keith’s pencil could be heard between them.

After a few moments, Shiro broke the tense silence. “So.. what sport do you play?”

Keith stopped to give him a look that said “are you stupid?” but instead he replied “Tennis.”

“Oh I see.” Another awkward silence floated between them.

To Shiro’s surprise, Keith was the first to break it.

“Look, I’m sorry about Richard earlier. He can say stuff he doesn’t mean. He’s not actually going to fight you. Forget about it and we’ll call it even.” Keith avoided meeting Shiro’s eyes.

Shiro had forgotten all about the tousled-haired companion. He gave a slow nod to signal “truce” as he thought about what to say next.

“That guy a friend or something?” He asked.

“He’s our captain too.” Keith seemed taken off-guard by the line of questioning.

“Never had a friend I had to make apologies for.” Shiro watched Keith’s eyebrows knit together.

The bell rang to signal the end of the day. Students filed in and out of the classroom to meet their friends. Three uniformed boys entered the room, Shiro recognized them as Keith’s teammates from earlier. They walked up to their shared table in the back of the room.

“Hey, you hanging out with pussies now?” The boy Shiro now recognized as Richard spat at Keith.

“Take it easy Richard.” Keith looked down at the floor.

“Relax, I’m just joking.” Richard said, “You coming to practice or have you gone full slacker on us?”

“I’m coming.” Keith began to pack up his bag.

“Hurry up. You’ve got enough loser in you without soaking up more from this guy.” Richard said, gesturing to Shiro.

“Hey man watch your mouth.” Shiro had a hard time understanding why Keith was so attached to this guy.

“Don’t get so worked up, new guy! I’m just kidding around. Keith, tell him I’m joking.” Richard tilted his chin up at Keith.

“Yeah Richard’s a real funny guy.” Keith finished packing his bag.

Shiro could only look between Richard and Keith incredulously. He was furious that Keith would let this guy step all over him.

“Real nice friends you keep.” Shiro said, grabbing his bag and he bee-lined it out of the classroom. He couldn’t watch this go on for any longer.

Once he stormed outside, Shiro was able to get his thoughts together. He leaned on his bike to breathe in the fresh air. He remembered that they were still in Keith’s subconscious. There were parts of Keith here that he didn’t have control over.

He stared at the blue sky for a minute. His frustration subsided and was replaced with a pang in his chest. He realized that over all the chaos, he really missed his best friend. He pushed the pang aside as best as he could, and resolved to go back in to the school and finish his job.

\-----

Shiro entered the gym from the upper level as quietly as he could. He took a seat at one of the second-story bleachers to make his observations. What he saw was incredible.

Keith moved like a panther on the court. He was lightning fast and hit balls back with incredible force. Shiro had hardly seen Keith so focused on anything in his life.

He was playing against Richard who matched him perfectly shot for shot. Shiro watched transfixed as the two grunted and screamed through a lightning paced match.

Richard went long and Keith stretched in a precarious backhand to volley the ball back. Richard returned it twice as hard and Keith dove to catch it a second before it hit the ground. They went back and forth for longer than seemed humanly possible. Finally, Keith sent the ball out at such an angle that Richard had to dive to reach it, and just barely missed the ball as it bounced and rolled away on the floor.

 Richard shook Keith’s hand and clapped him on the back. On the court things looked completely different between them. Richard was truly friendly, tender even. Shiro observed that he seemed to be a reassuring presence for Keith as they walked in stride to the changerooms.

Shiro had another plan to get on Keith’s good side, but he would need to stop by the vending machines first.

“Great game out there.” It was a gamble to assume that Keith would come out of the changerooms without Richard by his side, but it had paid off.

“Oh, uh, thanks. Didn’t know anyone was watching.” Keith said, seeming a little uncomfortable as he adjusted the strap of his gym bag.

“I just wanted to see what the gym looked like and thought I’d stick around to see a game.” Shiro hoped he sounded casual. “Oh, uh,  do you want one of these?” He stretched out his hand to reveal two pink lemonade sports drinks.

Keith’s expression brightened around the edges. “Thanks. I actually love those things.” He uncapped the drink and took a swig. “If you liked our practice you should come out to our game tomorrow after school.”

Shiro and Keith began to walk together, leaving the school and entering out into the cool night air.

“I’d love to” Shiro said “who are you playing?”  
“It’s singles,” Replied Keith, “I’m just going to be playing Richard.” 

“Can’t wait to see you beat him again.”

Keith let out a low ironic laugh. “Don’t place any bets on it.”

“What? You were amazing out there! I could see you coming on top over anyone.”

“Look, you can’t spread this around but..” Keith hesitated “I’m throwing the match.”

“Why the hell would you do that?”

Shiro and Keith had stopped walking now, they stood alone by the concrete steps that led up to the school.

“There’s a big scholarship guy coming to watch us play tomorrow, and Richard really needs to impress him. He’ll look better if I throw the match.”

“What about you? You couldn’t use a scholarship?”

“Yeah but… Richard’s just.. smarter, better. He could do more with the money than I could.”

“Bullshit!” Shiro was furious to hear his friend talk about himself that way.

“He’d kick my ass if I didn’t let him win it.”

Shiro’s rage subsided as he realized he had an in.

“Look. A while ago I went to a really special school. I did well in all my classes, I followed all the rules and then…” Shiro struggled to find the words for his story that wouldn’t break the illusion.

“Something bad happened to me. Really bad. One day, all my hard work had gone out the window. Life was totally different and I realized that it didn’t really matter if I had followed all the rules, and that I had sucked up to all the right people. The world was so much bigger than this little planet, this little school.”

Keith gave Shiro an indecipherable look.

“What I’m saying is, all the problems you feel like are your whole world right now, they may not even be real. And there’s nothing stopping you from winning that match and clocking Richard in the face.”

Keith broke out into a laugh. Shiro joined in. When the laughter died down Keith spoke up.

“Richard would murder me.”

They began walking away from the school again.

“I’ll be there.”

“What?”

“I’ll be there to get you out of here before he gets a chance. We’ll get on my bike and ride away so fast that Richard won’t even know what hit him.”

“where would we go?”

“We’ll go farther than your wildest dreams.” Shiro grinned.

“I don’t even know you.” Keith’s eyebrows drew together.

“I know you well enough to know you don’t deserve to be treated like shit by some guy just because you think he’s better than you.”

Keith frowned suddenly. Shiro worried that he had pushed it too far. There was a pause.

“Look. I should get home.” Keith picked up his pace to a hurried jog, hardly giving Shiro a chance to respond.

“I meant it!” Shiro yelled at his retreating figure. “I’ll be there!”

\---

The next day, Keith was nowhere to be found. Shiro spent his first period wandering from class to class, walking in on all manner of unusual lessons. In one classroom, a diagram of the inside of a saltine cracker was drawn across the board, in another, all the students sat sideways at their desks, facing the entrance. Shiro closed the door pretty quickly on that one.

At lunch he checked the gym, it was also empty. His spirits lifted when he caught the tennis team hanging out by a set of lockers, but he quickly realized that Keith wasn’t with them. They shot him a scathing look.

Finally, he found the science class where they had shared a desk. Shiro desperately hoped that he could recreate their encounter from the day before. He sat at the same table in the back and stared at the door as if he could will the next person coming in to be Keith with his mind. The bell rang, class started. The teacher started to bring up new and weirder cell sections than the ones from the day before. Shiro looked at the door for as long he could stand it. When it became clear that Keith wasn’t going to come, he let the teacher’s gibberish wash over him for the rest of the period.

Just like that, the bell rang. It was time for the game. Shiro was desperate to see if the seeds he’d planted would have taken their hold on Keith.

The bleachers in the gym were full, packed with the same generic students that filled the school halls. Shiro stuck out. Shiro, as well as a sharp-suited man holding a binder. He wondered if that was the scholarship guy.

Richard came through the gym doors, shoulders held back and clearly drinking in the attention of the crowd. Shiro held his breath while the crowd chattered, waiting for Keith to come on. The pause was uncomfortably long, but the doors finally parted a second time to reveal Keith in his tennis uniform holding a racket. He didn’t look nearly as confident as his opponent.

Somewhere, an electronic tone rung out signalling the start of the match. Keith stepped up to the serving line, his eyebrows drawn together in a look that could be focus or worry. 

Keith’s first serve flew fast into Richard’s end of the court, it arced so close to the back line that it almost looked out of bounds, but Richard appeared suddenly to strike it back, seemingly in the blink of an eye.

Richard’s return bounced close to the net, but Keith dove to return it. It flew out at an angle, and Richard returned it so quick that Keith didn’t stand a chance to make it to the other end of the court.

Love-15.

Keith served again and there was something different in the way Richard returned the ball. He hit it straight and hard, with all his force. Keith hit it back easily, but Richard returned it with an equal ferocity. He seemed to be trying to communicate something to Keith with his playing. Keith started to match Richard’s force, and the next round was filled with hard hits back and forth. They started to grunt to as they picked up the pace. Shiro could hardly follow the ball with his eyes when suddenly, the playing came to a halt. Richard had made a clumsy miss.

15-all

If the last round was force, this one was speed. They kept the ball close to the net, each diving forward to keep up with the varied and awkward angles that the ball flew in. This round was longer than the last, and he could see both of them starting to sweat to keep up. They held a steady pace until Keith dropped his racket hand suddenly and straightened out. Shiro was dumbfounded. Was Keith giving up?

A referee came forward to signal that the ball had actually gone out of bounds. Richard’s own mistake.

30-15

The next round was short. A forceful serve by Keith, and a return by Richard at an awkward speed. Keith seemed to have misjudged which way to chase the ball, and changed directions a moment too late. The ball bounced past him, just out of his reach.

30-all

Shiro began to feel uneasy about Keith’s intentions.

They played the next round at an even pace. Suddenly, Richard fired a faster and low that almost skimmed the net. The way Keith approached it was all wrong, but he adapted fast. At the final moment, Keith twisted his body with incredible speed. Hunched over, he stretched his arm across his torso and twisted his wrist to hit the ball backhand. Richard had not expected that. The ball bounced behind the opponent before he could even register that it had been returned.

40-30

Both boys were breathing hard. This was it. The moment where Keith would either win the match point, or enter into deuce with is opponent.

Shiro was worried that Keith had only been putting  up a good fight to make Richard look good. He was so distracted with this thought that he missed the serve that started the game.

The two were relentless against each other. Richard went long, and Keith sent it back in a new direction. Richard hurried the pace and Keith would twist his body to make it impossible to predict where the ball would go next. They continued in perfect synch until Richard hit the ball and changed his expression. Shiro watched it arc through the air as if it was moving through molasses. Richard had sent it arcing so close to the net, almost touching the divider, but Keith’s last move had placed him at the far end of the court.

Keith sprinted, pumping all his limbs and stretching himself forward at an almost impossible bend. As the ball bounced, it began a small ascent, leaving hardly any space for Keith to pass his racket beneath, but that’s just what Keith did.

Time sped up again, Shiro watched the ball fly past a dumbfounded Richard. The ref blew his whistle.

Game, set, match. Keith had won.

Richard threw his racket to the ground in fury. Keith seemed frozen in place for a moment, and then he took off at a sprint through the doors, letting them fall shut behind him. Shiro ripped himself out of his seat and took off down the bleacher stairs, heart pounding as hard as his feet.

He caught Keith right as he was headed for the front entrance of the school. He looked exhausted and pale.

“You were amazing!” Shiro said, full of adrenaline from what he had just witnessed.

Keith looked furious “Richard’s going to fucking kill me.” His expression changed to dread. “I’m fucking dead.”

“Keith look at me.” Shiro held Keith’s eye contact. “It doesn’t matter. None of this is real.”  
“What?”  
“None of this is real!”

Just then, a slam came behind them from the direction of the gym doors. Richard tore down the hall towards them, every step he took seemed to take him as far as two. He looked different. He was still sweaty, his hair looked less fake-dishevelled and more real-disheveled, with some strands falling in his face. He looked a lot more like Keith.

“What did I fucking tell you, you piece of shit!” He was screaming at full volume “I told you to keep your stupid head down you-”

THUD

The sound of bone against flesh. Keith had punched Richard in the face.

Richard’s face was thrown backwards by the force, his body twisting with the impact. But when he looked back, he looked even more different than he had before. His face had held an imprint of the punch, like hand through unbaked dough.

“Oh my god.” Keith said, “you were right.”  
He looked up at Shiro with a look of recognition. Keith was back.

“Let’s get out of here!” Shiro grabbed Keith’s hand and pulled him through the parking lot to his bike, the monstrous Richard hot on their heels.

Shiro swung his leg over and engaged the transmission. Keith wrapped his arms around Shiro’s waist and they ripped out of the parking lot, Richard’s demonic face becoming smaller behind them. Shiro had spent all this time in a high school, but hadn’t felt younger than he did at that moment.

 “How long were we in there?” Keith yelled over the sound of the engine.

“Hard to tell,” Shiro yelled back “A couple days? What happened to you?”

“Richard was just.. always with me. Even when he wasn’t there. He made me believe some.. rough stuff.” Keith’s grip on Shiro tightened. “Thanks for sticking around.”

Shiro laughed at the idea that he would ever leave. He glanced behind him as they continued riding down the open road. He was shocked to see that the road behind them had been swallowed up by darkness, their back tire only inches from the edge of the abyss. Strange, Shiro thought, it felt like they had gotten a lot more time in the last dream.

Shiro quickly turned his attention to Keith. There wasn’t enough time to go over everything again, so he simply blurted “Will you remember me next time?”

And Keith replied, “How could I forget?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Better late than never! Next chapter should come next week.

**Author's Note:**

> Hoping to have the next chapter up before the end of the week!  
> Cheers!


End file.
